Tag: Relationships

Categories
Communication Connect Time Family Relationships

How to Use Your Calendar to Build Relationships

If it’s a relationship that matters, make the time for it.

Image Source: Android Authority

“We really need to have a conversation about this.”

“I really wish I was spending more time with my family.”

“Hey, it was great to run into you! Let’s meet for coffee some time soon.”

They’re all touching expressions of interest, and they’re often heartfelt. But they simply don’t materialize.

Days pass into weeks, and weeks pass into months. Old patterns resume. And like a receding fog, hopes and wishes slip away into the oblivion of time.

You know what they say — the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And when it comes to relationships that matter, wishes are usually not enough.

The good news? Your calendar just may be the solution.

5 Calendar Tips and Strategies to Consider

Okay, so up to this point you’ve largely ignored the calendars in your phone. You’ve added a few birthdays, and maybe your cousin’s wedding.

But you’ve never really used your calendar to actually do life.

Here’s where I would start.

1. Share your calendar with your partner.

“Google Calendar saved our marriage,” my friend Julia once told me. And I completely get it.

It’s never fun to be surprised by your partner’s activities or obligations during the week, which is why Kristine and I share Google calendars. We also make it a point to sit down together every weekend to talk through the week ahead.

I’ve even taken the additional step of turning on email notifications on for my wife’s calendar, which produces an email notification every time she adds or changes an event. Some might curse the number of emails that generates, but that’s how much I value the life synchronization.

You’re planning on meeting your girlfriends on Sunday? Got it. I’ll need to pick up the boys on Wednesday night? No problem. We’ve got a family celebration across town all Saturday afternoon? Cool.

Just don’t tell me these things at the last minute. That’s all I ask.

I believe most of marital harmony is really just communication about expectations. Seriously.

So eliminate surprises. Communicate often, share your calendars, and get in sync.

2. Actually respect your scheduled events.

When I was first warming up to my Google Calendar, I’d pencil in my good intentions — only to ignore them or push them quickly aside if something better came along.

Don’t do that. Instead, be intentional. If it’s an important ritual or practice, pencil it in and try hard to respect it.

If it’s not important, or you find yourself ignoring an event repeatedly, have that real conversation with yourself about whether the relationship is actually something that you want to invest in.

3. Share the event with the people involved.

There are a ton of reasons to do this. For one, it serves as information central regarding time and location, avoiding the plethora of “Hey, what time are we meeting?” texts.

Everyone can check the event, and because it’s a living document, everyone sees the same info in real time.

Not only that, Google Calendar gives you the option of sending an additional notification every time an event is modified. New restaurant location? Send the notice with a click.

Another reason to share the event with the people involved is that everyone can see everyone else’s attendance status. Wondering who’s coming? The event makes it pretty clear.

4. RSVP.

On that last note … actually RSVP.

When sharing an event with others, I try to keep my own attendance intentions as clear and current as possible.

Let’s say that my friend declines our weekly run — regularly scheduled for this evening. When he goes to the effort of declining the (shared) event on his calendar, I don’t have to wonder about his status or try to find his last text message. It’s right there on the event. He’s not going.

5. Email directly from the event.

Another reason to share the event with the people involved is the ability to email people directly from the event. Thinking about making a change to an event three months away?

An email sent directly from the event gives all parties quick and direct access to the event info. No back and forth required.

Weekly Commitments: for the People Who Matter Most

For the relationships and rituals that matter most, make sure they’re happening at least once a week. I find that weekly meetings and routines offer a rhythm steady enough to keep these relationships vibrant and strong.

It’s easy to set these events in motion. Just pencil the slot into your Google Calendar and set it to repeat weekly. Be thoughtful about the time window and avoid designating it as an all-day event if possible. Add notes, comments, location, and relevant links or Docs.

One example of a weekly commitment I’ve made is reading to my two stepsons at bedtime. I read for about twenty minutes with each boy on Tuesday evenings.

My friend Steve reads to his girls virtually every night. That’s amazing, but I’m not out to match him. I have to do what works for our family and my schedule. And weekly works.

Weekly bedtime readings give us a frequency that is memorable, meaningful, and allows us to follow the plot from week to week. It’s something we all look forward to.

Here are other weekly commitments on my calendar that strengthen important relationships:

  • Monday evenings: family board game night (about 30 minutes after dinner)
  • Tuesday evenings: bedtime readings with the boys
  • Wednesday mornings: weekly run on treadmill
  • Thursday evenings: small group meetings
  • Friday evenings: Friday Family Fun Nights
  • Saturday mornings: family walk to Starbucks
  • Saturday evenings: Date Night
  • Sunday mornings: church with the family

Because these are all penciled in permanently, deviations are rare and we can be pretty intentional about making them happen. When we’re asked if we’re available during these times, that’s usually a short conversation. NO.

I won’t pretend to follow these routines perfectly, because I don’t. But having them on shared calendars is a pretty big step towards consistency.

Monthly Commitments: Checking In

There are other relationships that are important, but it’s simply not practical to maintain them every single week. For some of those, I set auto-repeating monthly meetings.

Some examples of monthly meetings that auto-repeat in my Google Calendar:

  • phone call with an out-of-town brother
  • evening meeting with three teacher friends
  • Pop & Boys Night — an agenda-driven heart-to-heart update-on-life conversation with my stepsons, including “How can I be a better parent?”
  • conference call with my Dad and three brothers
  • Saturday morning breakfast with an uncle and cousin in another city

By setting these events to auto-repeat for the same day of each month, I keep these relationships on the radar and add some intentionality that could otherwise be lost to the distractions of life.

Your Calendar Can Strengthen Your Relationships

Sometimes it’s a relationship you’d like to cultivate. Other times, it’s a critical decision kind of conversation that you need to have with your partner (before the mental fog of sleep).

Whatever it is, your calendar can help. Make the decision to leverage the tool well, and you’ll experience the benefits of a structured, intentional life.

Because if it’s a relationship that matters, it won’t grow by itself.

You have to make the time for it.

three man sitting on gray surface
Photo Credit: Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
Categories
Family Productivity Relationships Smartphones Social Media Technology Wellness

Instead of Screen Shame, Let’s Talk Screen Sense

“And every person there had their face stuck in a screen!” The last word always rings with a special condemnation.

Photo Credit: rawpixel.com

“… and all she did was stare at her phone the whole time!”

The vitriol can get pretty heated in some quarters, coming in dark looks and blasts of righteous fury that our grandparents’ media never received.

You’ve heard similar comments. Reading between the lines, they suggest that screen time is wasted time, that to use one’s phone is to be obsessed with nonsense or to be hopelessly oblivious to the real world. As people look into their black mirrors—be it a mobile device, tablet, laptop, or television — they’re trading down.

Don’t Misunderstand

Now don’t mishear me or assume you know where I’m going here. This piece is not an unqualified green light for screens at the expense of all human interaction and relationship.

I believe it’s critically important to be fully present and invested in the lives of the human beings around us. There are times to put phones away, and sensible boundaries must be drawn to protect relationships. My family observes device-free dinners, and I don’t take my phone into the bedroom at night. I’ve been known to leave my phone at home when headed out for a family time or date night.

We’re doing the next generation a great disservice if we model an always on, always connected, screens-over-people lifestyle.

The Digital World IS the World

That said, the fact is that the digital world has become our world. Our relationship with screens is not some passing fad — it’s here to stay. Those of us that rely on devices for work may interact intermittently with screens throughout most or all of our waking days. And as we move forward, screen time will only continue to grow in ways that we cannot fully imagine or understand today.

Some of the apps that I spend the most time on each day, like Google Drive and Docs, are only a dozen years old. Where will we be in another dozen years? None of us can predict with certainty. What we do know with certainty is that digital technology and the infrastructure that supports it keeps improving. Your next phone will likely live on a 5G network, for example.

But wait — I’m not done.

Not Acceptance by Inevitability

The point here is not to simply throw our hands in the air and accept the onslaught of screens saying “See, we had no choice!” This is not a message of resigned acceptance by inevitability.

The deeper point to be made here is that screen time is more complex, more nuanced than we would like it to be.

By nature, we gravitate toward simple explanations of life. That’s why black and white dichotomies are so popular.

Here’s one you’ve heard: book time = good, screen time = bad.

Put under closer scrutiny, that rule just doesn’t hold any water. Reading a book can be a wonderful, intellectually stimulating act. Yet it can also be socially isolating and strictly consumptive. Depending on the content (as online), the effect can also be as morally corrupting or mind-numbing as any other medium (think Mein Kampf).

Is reading a book time well spent? As it turns out, the answer depends on context and content.

Screen Complexity

And so it is with screen time. It comes in many shades and varieties of value and virtue. Creation is different than consumption, interaction is different than isolation, and function is different than addiction. But all can happen on screens.

In any given day, I use screens to journal, set goals, check calendar events, read scripture, evaluate student work, plan lessons, write articles, edit audio recordings, publish podcasts, engage with other educators, message family and friends, read and write emails, manage shopping lists, order coffee, book reservations, record great quotes, take and share notes, listen to podcasts, manage finances, track my fitness, FaceTime my parents, follow the news, record photos and video, enjoy movies with my family, read books, and on and on I could go.

I’ve got to be real with you here. Even as I browsed my devices to compile that list, I had to fight the screen guilt. Which is kind of funny, but not.

Because when I scan that list of activities — far from an inclusive list, mind you — there’s nothing there that I would change. There’s nothing on that list that’s addictive, destructive, or damaging. It’s just what my life looks like in 2018. In fact, many of those activities actually facilitate some of my life’s most meaningful moments, achievements, and relationships.

Screen time conversations are never easy. As spouses, parents, friends, educators, and leaders, we must make thoughtful decisions around technology — for ourselves and often for others — on a daily basis.

Screen Guilt is Not the Solution

Whatever choices we make, living in a constantly conflicted state of guilt about screen time cannot be the solution. Instead, it’s about using screens strategically: creating more than consuming, connecting more than isolating, educating more than entertaining. It’s about deploying technology to strengthen our communities instead of weakening them, and building relationships instead of destroying.

It’s about living with screens judiciously. Transparently. Unapologetically.

Because it’s not about screen shame. It’s about screen sense.

Categories
Connect Time Goals Growth Mindset Productivity

My 2017 Goals in Review

2017 is breathing its last, and as it comes to a close I look back on the goals I set for this year. Goals that were met and surpassed encourage and motivate me to aim higher in 2018. Goals that were left unmet give me cause to evaluate my habits, decisions, and personal routines in order to determine where things went awry and where I can grow further in the coming year.

At the end of the post I also reflect on some of the biggest highlights that fell completely outside of my goal-setting and made 2017 a memorable year.

Financial

✓ Goal: Earn at least $1,200 in supplementary (side hustle) income. This goal was easily achieved by selling collectibles and currency coins on eBay. I expect this to continue through 2018.

✘ Goal: Sell 365+ items online. Even though I listed as many as 10 items in a single day, the average of one listed item per day was just too difficult to sustain this year. I’ll be downgrading or eliminating this goal entirely in 2018.

✘ Goal: Reduce HELOC balance by $300/month or $3,600. My wife and I have held a balance on our HELOC ever since buying our home in 2015. Unfortunately, our balance on this account went the wrong direction this year. The biggest culprits were new hardware tools, three weeks of summer camps for the boys, a week for us at a luxury resort in Vernon, a family weekend in Whistler, a new hot water tank, a semester’s worth of tuition for my Master’s degree, and flights for the family to Winnipeg at Christmas. Some of these expenditures were justified but many were not. The good news on this front is that we’ve successfully tightened our budget for the last four months of 2017 and actually saved more than we earned during that period. I’m confident we can do a lot better in 2018, even though I’ll be paying out another $6,000 in tuition.

Marital

✓ Goal: Make weekly Connect Times happen more consistently. We were able to turn this around well in the last few months of 2017 by conducting our weekly ‘Connect Time’ meetings on Saturday mornings instead of trying to pull them off in the evenings. Reviewing all of our budget areas and comparing calendars for the week ahead really helped keep us on the same page and helped us manage our money more efficiently.

✘ Goal: Plan at least one memorable date per month. I’m sad to say that this didn’t happen. Thankfully, Date Nights did happen regularly, but typically we made it up as we went. I can do better here, but it will require scheduling some planning time into my week.

Paternal

✓ Goal: Read with the boys before bed on a weekly basis. This has gone really well. I’m currently reading to both boys on Tuesday evenings: The Hobbit with Michael and This Present Darkness with Joshua.

✓ Goal: Continue monthly stepdad-stepson meetings. Our monthly dinners at Tim Hortons continued faithfully. Topics included school, friendships, finances, goals, plans, purity, and gaming. I started keeping a journal of notes from these meetings.

✓ Goal: Find more connecting points with the boys. This goal is difficult to quantify, but I think I achieved it. One fun development is that the boys are finally old enough now to handle watching more interesting movies with me. We’re also mutual fans of a growing number of YouTube channels, and we plan to do some vlogging together in 2018.

✘ Goal: Make a baby. Good news here: it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Physical

✓ Goal: Complete 12+ reps of 135 lbs. on the bench press at our annual July 1st fitness challenge. I completed 13.

✓ Goal: Bring weight down from 192 lbs. to 180. By fasting completely from chips, fries, and sugary drinks from spring break forward, I actually saw 179 on the scale one day this fall. As of this writing my weight is back in the low 180s.

✓ Goal: Work out 104+ times in 2017. I broke 104 recorded workouts, most of them taking place at Anytime Fitness locations.

✘ Goal: Do 42 pushups in one set. My max this year was 35. Two shoulder dislocations in March didn’t help, but that’s no excuse. To elevate this number further, I think I need to start doing push-ups before bed every day.

✘ Goal: Complete the Vancouver Sun Run in <50 minutes. I didn’t run it at all, thanks largely to two shoulder dislocations the month before.

✘ Goal: Reduce meat intake by 14% or more with Meatless Mondays. This started well in the first months of the year but eventually fell by the wayside. I’d like to try to get back on it in 2018.

✘ Goal: Run 3+ km an average of once/week. I only ran more than 3 km a total of six times in 2017. This has got to improve in 2018. Running at 8:00 a.m. on Sundays is the key. Clearly I’m conflicted when it comes to running.

Professional

 ✓ Goal: Begin a M. Ed. program or other certification. I began a MEdL program at VIU which is going very well.

✓ Goal: Record at least 1+ set of assessments per day during the school year. At the time of this writing, I’ve managed to record an average of at least one set of class assessments per day through the last three months of 2017.

Self-Improvement

 ✓ Goal: Write and publish 12+ blog posts. As of mid-December I had published 18 and counting. I’m dreaming big in terms of how and where to grow my writing in 2018.

✓ Goal: Discard at least one item of clothing per week. I’ve surpassed this one, but the scary thing is that it hardly feels like I’ve made a dent.

 ✓ Goal: Read 3,650+ book pages. This turned out to be a difficult goal to quantify and track, but I think I’ve achieved it. I purchased a Kindle in the fall, and it’s become a go-to before bed on a daily basis. My Master’s program has certainly pushed me in this regard.

Social/Relational

✓ Goal: Go on at least one double date per month. We’ve easily surpassed this, and it’s been great.

✓ Goal: Visit the Cavey families in Winnipeg. After three years away, we made our first family trip to Winnipeg as a married couple in December.

✓ Goal: Connect with neighbours over a meal. In mid-December we finally went on a double date with our next door neighbours. It was great to get to know them and share life stories. It turns out we have a lot in common.

Spiritual

✓ Goal: Read through the New Testament 2x, Psalms 2x, and Proverbs 12x. I was able to follow these reading plans pretty consistently by listening to the audio tracks on these reading plans using the YouVersion app each morning.

✓ Goal: Complete the Freedom Session course. This was a long course, but some valuable healing and introspection took place along the way.

✘ Goal: Complete 12+ prayer journal entries. These are page-long reflections that I write out as prayers and meditations on the state of my life. As of December 18, I had only completed eight on the year.

Home Projects

✓ Goal: Clean vinyl siding on the exterior of our house. We bought a telescopic wand/brush at the home show just for this purpose. It happened.

✓ Goal: Paint the back patio. This was done over 2-3 hot days in the summer. The colour is a bit lighter than I wanted, but our patio looks cleaner, brighter, and better-maintained than it did before.

Other Victories to Celebrate from 2017

✫ No phone at bedtime. For a range of reasons, I decided to ban my phone from the bedroom at bedtimes, leaving it on our main floor. It’s been a great experience. I now read more, engage more with my wife, and go to sleep sooner. What started as a 2-week experiment has become a permanent lifestyle change. See my Medium post about my decision to ban my phone from the bedroom.

✫ A successful change to the diet. Concerned over my rising weight and blood pressure, in the spring I decided to completely fast from my three worst vices: chips, fries, and sugary drinks. I’ve managed to keep to those rules pretty strictly and lost 12 bad pounds in the process.

✫ A new morning routine. In the spring I decided to start waking up at 4:30 a.m. every workday morning. Although there have been times where exhaustion, stress, or poor health has taken me off this routine, I’ve managed to keep it pretty consistently for the balance of the calendar year. My morning hour spent at Starbucks gives me amazing creativity and productivity, and this routine also ensures I get 20-30 minutes in at Anytime Fitness before returning home around 6:35 a.m. to officially start preparing for the day. I hope this will remain a life habit.

✫ A bedtime journal. I started doing some handwritten journaling and reflecting before bed, using the Tim Ferriss 5-minute journal as a guide. Although I’ve only used it about a dozen times, it gives me a starting point for 2018. Eventually I would like this to become an every-night ritual. It’s so good for the mind and spirit.

 ✫ A new canoe. Our family got an amazing deal on a good canoe, and we enjoyed some quality canoe adventures at Widgeon Creek and English Bay. Watching the Celebration of Light fireworks display from nearby on the ocean surface was an awesome experience.

✫ Three days of paddleboarding. While the boys were away at a camp on Vancouver Island, my wife and I spent days paddleboarding at Ambleside Beach, Alouette Lake, and the Burrard Inlet. My favourite experience was paddling down the Indian Arm, exploring islands together and enjoying a still day on the ocean.

 ✫ Best hike ever. In August I hiked Panorama Ridge in Garibaldi Provincial Park (near Whistler, BC), producing some of the most beautiful views of any hike I’ve ever done.

✫ The ISTE conference in San Antonio, TX. At the end of June, I and two colleagues were privileged to spend about six days in San Antonio at the largest education technology conference in the world. It was an awesome experience and I hope to visit the conference again some time.

✫ Books completed in 2017:

  1. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Carol Dweck)
  2. The Tech-Wise Family (Andy Crouch)
  3. The Reason You Walk (Wab Kinew)
  4. Cold, Hard Truth (Kevin O’Leary)
  5. Classroom Management in the Digital Age: Effective Practices for Technology-Rich Learning Spaces (Heather Dowd)
Categories
Communication Smartphones Technology

Living in the Moment with my Phone

Smartphones are amazing. And alarming. They allow us to do so much, yet limit how much we can do. Since the appearance of the first iPhone in 2007, we’ve experienced a cultural shift the size and speed of which rivals anything in recorded history.

In the space of a few years, these shiny little computers have become ubiquitous across the culture. As recently as the year 2000 they were nonexistent. In 2010 they were a novelty. By 2020 there will be virtually no productive adults in society without one.

Of course this current state of being has been oft-repeated and much discussed over the last decade. It’s a conversation not about to go away any time soon. I won’t belabour the point by listing the endless conveniences offered or distractions created by these devices. You’ve heard it all before.

With this massive cultural shift comes questions around norms. How do phones change the rules of social behaviour? It seems every other person has strong opinions in this area. You’ve heard many of them: no phones at the dinner table, don’t acknowledge your phone in the middle of a face-to-face conversation, don’t break up by text message. These three particular examples enjoy broad social consensus because they appear to place higher value on actual human interactions over virtual ones. A good thing, to be sure.

I guess the suggested norms that I’m most resistant to argue that the mere presence of a phone is enough to degrade so-called “real life” experiences. You’ve heard these suggestions, too: writing with a pen on paper is more intimate than typing on a device, reading paper versions of religious texts is more meaningful than reading those same texts on a screen, walking on a beach at sunset is more wonderful without the option of snapping a picture.

In the age of organic, phones are GMO.

This is the religious orthodoxy of what I will call the school of real-life purism. These self-appointed defenders of real life are often – although not always – Luddite in their attitudes to technology in general. Nature good, technology bad. Pen good, keyboard bad. Conversations good, FaceTime bad. And so on. These critics feign a sort of low-key, casual ignorance around technology, but press them enough and you’ll unearth a strongly held distaste for devices of any kind.

For the most orthodox of the screen-free variety, it boils down to this: technology is stealing away our very lives. It’s tearing at the fabric of our human existence. In somber tones they lament the day when missing an exit on a freeway in a strange place might cost a stop at a gas station to ask for directions. Look what Google Maps has cost us in human interactions, they protest. They’ll shake their heads at all the transit passengers with music in their ears, mourning all those lost conversations between strangers. They’ll decry the death of the newspaper, assuming that journalism is disappearing instead of evolving.

Some of these arguments have a small seed of validity, just enough of a semblance of truth to make us feel guilty about our use of devices. But it’s easy to romanticize and overstate the qualities of life before smartphones. I remember well the transit norms of yesteryear, and they didn’t include an expectation to strike up conversations with strangers on the bus. No, Grandpa didn’t start the day with his head buried in a screen. But he sure liked his morning newspaper. Contrary to what you might think, recent studies show that modern dads spend more quality one-on-one interaction time with their children than the dads of 50 years ago. It seems technology hasn’t destroyed us just yet.

One of my favourite points of contention with the most orthodox of these real life purists is their supposition that to be fully present in a moment demands the phone be put away. (Thankfully my wife isn’t one of them.) I love photography. I enjoy the thrill of the capture. And I like seeing the captures of others. And so when I’m on a paddleboard at sunset, when I’m biking the seawall, or when I’m hiking a mountain, you’d better believe I’ll have my phone with me.

Does that mean I’m somehow less present in the experience? I think not. In fact, I like to argue that my loves of photography and Instagram makes me more observant, more curious, more easily delighted by the small details of everyday life.

My personal rationale is simple: I use technology to amplify experiences. I use technology to document them. To comment on them. To organize them, share them, and recall them conveniently. Ask a no-device purist what they did in March of 2012 or August of 2014. If they’re human, that mental recall might be tricky. But without checking to be sure, I know my chain of daily photos will tell me exactly where I was, what I was doing, and what was interesting during those months. My digital footprint is recording the story of my life.

No, I’m not advocating for a mindless embrace of all things digital and shiny. Clearly we need to defend human relationships where they are threatened by digital activities. We need to discriminate in terms of our application of screens. We need to be mindful of how our devices shape our time and money expenditures. We need to focus on applying technology in ways that solve problems, create beauty, and build relationships.

But let’s not make the false distinction between technology and so-called “real life.” Let’s not treat technology as more powerful than the medium that it is. The humans are still in charge, and it’s still entirely possible to be fully present, to fully experience relationships, to remain fully alive in the Digital Age.